Former President Bill Clinton delivered the keynote address at the Patient Safety Movement Foundation's Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit last week, discussing the impact patient safety issues have on the economy at large.
Integral to patient safety, President Clinton said, is interoperability of IT systems and devices, and technology companies that don't commit to interoperability are directly negatively impacting patients care.
"It's just a mistake," President Clinton said in his address. "It's the difference between life and death for people. You can't have a position where you know what you're doing is costing lives."
President Clinton heralded the Patient Safety Movement's Patient Data Super Highway vision, a big data network whose predictive algorithms would provide clinicians and patients with real-time medical data. Such an initiative is only possible if all technology providers allow make interoperable devices that connect and communicate through EHRs.
President Clinton also committed resources from the Clinton Global Initiative to the Patient Safety Movement's mission of zero preventable deaths by 2020.
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